


Vendetta

by TVgirll1971



Category: Whiskey Cavalier (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22697125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TVgirll1971/pseuds/TVgirll1971
Summary: Ray is taken hostage by a woman with an axe to grind. At the same time he disappears, FBI funds are mysteriously loaded into his personal account--leading the FBI to issue a warrant for Ray's arrest.
Relationships: Ray Prince/Susan Sampson
Kudos: 3





	Vendetta

The team returned to The Dead Drop following their successful mission in Tokyo. However, something was missing--Ray. He always came to the Dead Drop during their post mission toast. Even back when he wasn’t welcome, he’d come. Even odder was that he couldn’t be reached. The minute they touched down at the airport, Susan called Ray’s cell phone but it went straight to voice mail. She tried his office and his home phone but still no luck. It was definitely strange but no one worried too much about because it was Ray. He could be a bit of a flake sometimes.

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Ray woke up with a splitting headache. It felt like a ton of bricks had landed on his head. He opened his eyes and it was pitch black. "Why is it so dark?" he thought, groggily. His bedroom was never this dark. Ray tried to move and realized he couldn't--he was tied to a chair! "What the hell? Where am I?" a touch of alarm breaking through the grogginess. Ray tried yelling out "What’s going on? Where am I?" Unfortunately, Ray’s cries were met with silence. Finally, a door opened and Ray could see the silhouette of a man in the lightened doorway.

“What’s going on?” Ray asked. Unfortunately, the response was a few quick punches to the face—with brass knuckles! And Ray lost consciousness again. Sometime later, Ray woke up to feeling of ice cold water being thrown in his face. “Rise and shine, pig!” he heard someone say in a heavy Russian accent. Ray squinted and looked up. A bald man with a beard stood over him carrying some sort of weapon. Ray couldn’t make out what it was.

“Where am I?” Ray asked groggily.

“You don’t need to know that.” The man said as he glared down at Ray.

“Why am I here?”

“You’re here because someone paid me to bring you here. Lots of money. Who she is? Not for me to say.”

“She? A woman’s going after me?” Ray thought to himself. That didn’t make any sense to him. Yes, he’s made women angry but not enough to do this.

“So? What? You’re some kidnapper?”

“Oh, I do all kinds of jobs. Sometimes murder, sometimes kidnapping. My favorite job, though” he said with a smile. “It is torture.” And with that he stuck Ray with a cattle prod numerous times, taunting him. “There you are Mr. Tough FBI agent. Not so tough now, are you? Hee Hee.”

The torture stopped when the door opened. In stepped a beautiful dark haired woman about forty.

“Hi, Ray-Ray.” The woman said.

Ray’s eyes went wide. “Oh, my God. Talia?!” he thought to himself.

“Cat got your tongue, Ray-Ray?” she asked in a taunting voice.

"Why—why are you doing this?" Ray asked.

"You know the answer to that." With a look of disgust, she continued. “Or have you forgotten how you threw me to the wolves the second you got me in your bed? “

Ray shook his head. “That’s not what happened. The Bureau wanted to know who leaked the information to the press. I had to tell them what I knew.”

"YOU had to? The man who barely got through Quantico had the audacity to report ME." She squatted down to face Ray. "I was first in my class at Quantico. First! And I'm set back because of a man who got by on his Daddy's coattails?!"

"I never used my father's name to get ahead." his face hard. He had this discussion with others, he sure as hell didn’t want to have it with her.

"Please. You were the Deputy Director's son. Do you honestly think you passed because you earned it? But I did earn it. I WORKED my ass for it and it was ruined because of you!” After slapping Ray in the face, she continued. "Daddy can't help you now, can he? This time you're going to lose. Everything.” She glanced up at the man in the room. “That is after I have Dmitri have some fun with you first.”

As Talia left the room, Dmitri smiled sadistically at Ray as he brandished his cattle prod.

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Meanwhile, that evening, Will and Frankie heard a pounding on Will’s door. “Who the hell’s that?” Frankie asked as Will got up to answer the door. Frankie followed and the pair were shocked to find a very upset Susan.

"He ran off with another woman." Susan said as she stormed through the door.

"What? What are you talking about?” Frankie asked.

"Ray! It's right here." Susan handed Frankie a letter. "He left that for me at home. He says how sorry he is. How he never wanted to hurt me. How could I have been so stupid?!" Susan's voice began cracking. "I knew his history. I knew what he did to Will. How could I have been so blind?!"

Reading the letter with a perplexed look on his face, Will stated. "This doesn't make sense."

“He ran around your back for seven months, why wouldn't he do the same with Susan?" Frankie pointed out.

Seemingly at a loss for words, Will replied. "I told you before, Gigi was an isolated incident."

"That you know of." Frankie said.

“I don’t get it.” Susan said from the couch. “I thought he was happy. There was no indication of this! How could I not know?”

Will walked over, sat next to Susan and assured her. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

Unfortunately, the next day, Ray still couldn’t be reached. Even more disconcerting was the fact that he hadn’t shown up for work.

“What do you mean he didn’t show up?” Frankie asked Will.

.”I mean he didn’t show up.” Will replied. “No phone call. No anything. Which doesn’t make sense. Ray may be kind of lax but there’s no way he’d just skip out on the job.” Suddenly, Will’s phone rang. “It’s Director Casey.” he said with a perplexed look on his face. “I better get this.”

Several minutes later. Will came back looking stunned.

“What’s wrong?” Frankie asked.

“The team’s expense account was flagged. Apparently, Ray emptied the entire account out yesterday. Now there’s a warrant out for his arrest.”

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Ray didn't know how long he'd been asleep. It was hard to tell with the music blaring the whole time. That was Dmitri’s little joke—let’s keep Ray awake by blasting loud, obnoxious music in the room. He didn’t know what was worse, the music or the dammed strobe light that kept coming on at random intervals. Ray knew what this was—sleep deprivation. It wasn’t enough that he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in God knows how long—No. Let’s keep him awake at all hours too!

Ray tried to put together what happened—he was leaving the office. He was going to catch a bite to eat before going to the Dead Drop to meet the others for the post-mission toast. Next thing, he knows he’s tied to a chair somewhere. He must’ve been hit on the head in the parking garage. That’d explain why his head hurt. Ray guessed he was drugged also. Suddenly, the door opened and the lights were switched on.

“Good morning, Ray-Ray. How’d you sleep?” she asked in a taunting voice.

So, he did see her yesterday! He thought maybe he dreamt it but there she was in all her psycho-glory. The nemesis he never wanted and never thought he’d see again.

"You're not going get away with this, Talia. My team will be looking for me." A weak Ray said to his captor.

"No they won't. If anything your reputation is worse now than it was before. See, as far as your team is concerned--you're a common thief."

"How?"

"It wasn't that hard, really. All I had to do was transfer some money from your team's budget into your personal account. Then presto--instant embezzler!"

"My team won't believe it."

"Why? Because you're the epitome of virtue? No. You're a liar, Ray. A filthy no good liar” At this point, she broke out in a big smile. “And the best part is everyone knows it. They've known it since day one."

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Will called the team to The Dead Drop to discuss the Ray situation. Since he still couldn’t be reached, Will decided it was up to the team to find him and/or exonerate him. Unfortunately, the team came up empty on both counts. In fact, a look into Ray’s finances gave him a pretty solid motive for embezzling money, which Frankie pointed out.

"You can't honestly think he did this?" Will asked.

"I don't know. You saw his credit card bills."

"Yeah, so? He's bad at managing his money. So what?"

"So, sometimes people in debt do desperate things."

"No. Not Ray."

"Listen, I know he's your best friend. I like the guy too but let's be realistic. He doesn't have the best track record when it comes to making good decision. If he found himself over his head...”

"He would've come to me."

"Would he? Are you sure? This is the man who snuck behind your back for seven months."

"You keep bringing that up. That's not the same thing."

"No, but it does suggest a pattern. He's good at keeping secrets."

"Okay, but having an affair is one thing. You're talking about embezzling money."

"He was compromised, Will. Think like an FBI agent--you have a man heavily in debt with no clear way out. He can only shrug it off for so long, but soon creditors are going to be pounding on his door. He handled the budget. He may have seen an opportunity that he couldn't pass up."

"Why are you so convinced his guilty?"

"I’m not. I'm just trying to be objective, because it's obvious you can't be. On paper, everything suggests that Ray's guilty. Ad if he's not, where the hell is he? Innocent people don't run."

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“OW!!!” Ray screamed. There was the damned cattle prod again. Waking up to that was probably the worst thing ever.

“Good news.” Ray heard Talia say (since he was still struggling to open his eyes) “Operation Burn Ray Prince is a crowning success.”

“Go to hell.” Ray muttered, weakened from not having any food or drink in two days.

“Aw, don’t say that, Ray-Ray.” Talia said as she fingered his jawline. “Told you it wouldn’t be that hard. Your life is so messed up already why wouldn’t anyone believe you’d steal some money? Hell, even your girlfriend knows you’re a lousy liar now.”

“Stay away from her.” Ray warned as he struggled to get out of his chair.

“Or what? “She scoffed. “Anyway, all I did was show her what a filthy liar you are.”

“Liar.” Ray snickered. “You’d know about that. You fooled everyone into thinking you belonged in the FBI.”

“I did belong.” She said with clenched teeth. “I was first in my class…”

“So what??” he said dismissively. “You got cocky and couldn’t handle it when you washed out.”

“I did not wash out!!” she said, angrily. “I made one mistake. ONE MISTAKE! And you threw me under the bus!! You--you’re entire life’s a mistake.”

“Maybe.” Ray said with a smirk. “But I’m still in the Bureau, aren’t I?”

“ASSHOLE!” Talia screamed as she struck Ray in the face. “Do your worst.” She told Dmitri. “Just make sure he stays alive.”

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"Nothing yet?" Frankie asked, incredulous. After all, it’d been two days and there was no trace of Ray. 

"Nope.” Standish announced. “Sorry. I've checked airlines, train stations, even highway CCTV footage. Nothing.”

"I don't know." Frankie said to Will. "I’m starting to think you're right. Something fishy’s going on here."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it shouldn't be this hard to find him. This is Ray we’re talking about. He's a good agent but good enough to just vanish? I don't think so. If he’s off the grid, someone is definitely helping him."

“I did find something though.” Standish spoke up. “The money deposited into Ray’s account. It didn’t come directly from the FBI database. It went from the FBI database to an offshore account, then Ray’s account.”

“Do you know who the account belongs to?" Will asked.

“Name on the account is… Sue Sampson?” Standish reported.

“Like I said. Something’s definitely fishy here.” Frankie said. “Even if Ray was smart enough to get himself an off shore account, which he’s not, there is no way he’d put Susan’s name on it.”

“Standish, can we get a picture of Sue Sampson.” Will asked.

“Maybe. Sometimes banks scan ID’s for identification purposes. Give me a second.” After a brief pause, Standish yelled out. “There! Got it!”

“Can’t be.” Will said with a stunned look on his face.

“What? Who is she?” Frankie asked.

"Talia Moon. Former FBI.” Will said, stunned. “She was on a team with Ray before he went to Rome. Internal affairs was investigating some leaks to the press. Ray thought they came from her and testified to that. She was given a thirty day suspension. Before it was over, she came back to the FBI building looking to kill Ray. She did almost did too. Luckily, she was subdued and sent to a mental hospital. Look up her record, see if she was released.”

“Okay.” Standish said as he started his search. “There she is! Talia Moon. Says she was released from the hospital nine months ago.”

At this point, walked in and gathered around the group. Seeing the picture on Standish’s screen, Susan suddenly blurted out "Oh, my God!"

"What?" Will asked an obviously distressed Susan.

"That woman! I found her picture on Ray's computer. They were together. She's the woman he ran off with!"

"No way." Will said adamantly. "Talia Moon tried to shoot Ray. There’s no way they ran off together.”

"But her picture is all over his laptop!" Susan insisted. "I can go and get it to show you!"

"You don't have to do that." Standish pointed out. "I'm a hacker, remember? What's his password?"

"Uh, Raysan. It’s our couple name."

"Aw, cute. Okay, there it is." After a while, Standish announced that the pictures were photo shopped.

"What?" Susan exclaimed.

"Yeah, you can tell, right here. This tree doesn't really line up properly. I mean it's a good Photoshop but it's not perfect. This Talia person definitely inserted herself in these photos."

“This was all a frame up.” Frankie deduced out loud.

"Oh, my God. Oh, my God. No, No." Susan cried hysterically, as she paced back and forth, holding her head in her hands.

Frankie rushed over to her and grabbed her shoulders and guided Susan to the nearest chair. “Susan. Come on sit down.”

Susan rocked back and forth, continuing to cry out. NO! I was so horrible! I thought...”

Will sat down across from Susan. "Susan. Look at me. Susan. Look at me.” When she did, he continued. "This isn't your fault. You had no way of knowing."

"I should have! I should've trusted him. I was so sure. Oh, God. I threw out all his stuff! What kind of person automatically assumes she's being cheated on?"

"What kind of person expects photo shopped pictures on a computer? Susan, Talia played us. She knew there were doubts about Ray and she played on that."

"I was so angry. If anything happens...” Susan started to cry.

"Hey.” Will touched her chin to get her to look at him. “We're going to find him.”

"We haven't so far." Susan pointed out.

"No, because we didn't know the situation. Now we do--we're not dealing with a fugitive anymore. It's a kidnapping. I'm going to have Standish expand his search to include Talia. “ 

At that point, Frankie squatted down by Susan. “This is a good thing, Susan. Trust us."

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Ray woke up again—if you could call it waking up. Thanks to Dmitri's “fun” Ray hadn’t had a decent night sleep in days. Plus, he was freezing. He’d swear the heat was turned down at night. Suddenly he realized, he wasn’t even sure it was night—he’s sitting in a room without windows. Suddenly, the lights switched on, blinding his one good eye since the other was swollen shut.

“Hello, Ray-Ray!” he heard Talia say in a chirpy voice.

Ray couldn’t take it anymore. He was thirsty, starving and in constant pain. “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?”

“Aw, then I wouldn’t be able to watch you suffer.”

“I don’t see why this was so hard.” Ray said with a disgusted look on his face. “You got a RIF. So, what? I was expelled from two schools. You don’t see me crying.”

“You might be happy being a screw-up. But some of us happen to have standards.”

“Standards.” Ray chuckled. “Minute it got tough you bailed.”

“You ruined me!” Talia insisted.

Ray shook his head slowly. “You could’ve bounced back after your suspension. But you just gave up.”

“I had a mark on my record. People don’t come back from that.”

“You didn’t even try. Sure, maybe you wouldn’t have been on the fast track but you could’ve done something. You could’ve redeemed yourself. I may have put that mark on your record but you ruined yourself.” he looked at Dmitri, then laughed. “You can’t even torture me without farming it out.”

"YOU LOUSY, STINKING MUTT!!" she screamed as she grabbed the cattle prod from Dmitri and stuck Ray in the head with it. As Ray tasted the blood in his mouth, Talia suddenly shocked him with the cattle prod for several minutes. The pain was so excruciating that Ray wondered if his screams could be heard across town.

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Will was right. By broadening the parameters to include Talia, Standish found an abandoned warehouse owned by Talia’s family. CCTV recorded a woman, dressed in a baseball cap, entering and leaving the warehouse on numerous occasions. Facial recognition confirmed it was Talia Moon.

Will and Frankie made it a point to enter the warehouse quietly. After all, Susan warned them that someone as emotionally unstable as Talia would not hesitate to murder Ray if she was cornered. “That is if he’s not dead already.” Will thought to himself. However, he quickly pushed that thought aside. No, Talia returned to this warehouse that morning. There’d be no reason for her to return unless she still had Ray alive. Walking through the corridor, they came across a man lounging in a chair as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Why would he? As far as he knew, no one had a clue that the FBI pig was here. Dimitri discovered he was wrong the moment he found himself in a chokehold but by that point it was too late—he was out cold.

After taking care of Dmitri, Will, with Frankie, walked down the corridor. Coming across an open door, they peeked inside and saw Talia. The woman was behind Ray, using some sort of shock weapon on him. (“Is that a cattle prod?” Will thought to himself.) The real shock was seeing Ray. His face pale, bruised, and bloody. The expression on his face lifeless--Will suddenly thought of a phrase his mother used “Like death warmed over.” That definitely applied to Ray right now. Without a second to lose, Will and Frankie entered the room, guns drawn.

“Talia Moon! FBI! Freeze!” Will yelled.

Shocked, Talia looked up and whipped out a knife which she held to Ray’s throat. “Come any closer, he dies.” she announced.

“You don’t want to do this, Talia.” Frankie said.

“Don’t you tell me what I want to do.” Talia said with contempt, the knife dangerously close to Ray’s neck.. “This filthy, conniving weasel deserves to die for what he did to me. I worked my ASS off at Quantico and it’s ruined because of this imbecile who gets a cushy office for doing nothing!! Do you think that’s fair?!”

“Feed into her delusion.” Will heard Susan say on comms. “You’ll be able to distract her if she thinks you’re on her side.”

“No. It’s not fair.” Will replied. “No one’s ever mad at Ray. He does whatever he wants, then gets by on his charm. Heaven forbid you want to stay mad at him because no one else does. Look what he did to me! He stole my fiancée and still my team fell in love with him.” Talia’s eyes stay glued to Will as he started walking to the other side of the room, away from Frankie. “And can we talk about luck? I mean that office? What did he do to deserve an office like that? He accepted a job that no one else wanted. Things the rest of us have to work for just fall in his lap. You know what else isn’t fair, Talia? You blaming Ray for your own mistakes.” And with that, Frankie snuck up behind Talia and pulled her away from Ray.

As Frankie led a hysterical Talia away screaming, (“Damned you, Ray!!! You bastard!! I want you dead!!”) Will rushed over to Ray. "Ray. Ray. Come on, buddy. Look at me." Will said, snapping his fingers, trying to get Ray's attention. Unfortunately, Ray didn’t registered his presence. As Will untied him, Susan ran in with the EMT’s following behind.

“Ray! Ray!” Susan yelled as she bolted in the room. “Oh, my God. What the hell did that bitch to him?”

“I don’t know.” answered Will. “But he needs to get to a hospital fast.”

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Luckily, Ray got to the hospital in time and doctors assured Susan and the others that he would eventually make a full recovery. 

“Don’t worry about work.” Will assured Ray as he and Frankie visited him in the hospital. “I’ll cover for you.”

“Thanks.” Ray said, a bit distracted.

“Don’t worry about Talia either. She’s in lock down where she belongs.” Frankie added.

Looking pensive, Ray said. “I keep thinking maybe she was right. Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut?”

“Ray. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Will insisted. “It was an official investigation. “You had to tell the truth.”

“It’s just—I’ve gotten so many second chances. Maybe I should’ve given her one.”

“You’ve done a lot of stupid things, Ray,” Frankie said. “Calling out Talia wan not one of them. This isn’t grade school. This is the FBI where mistakes could mean the difference between life and death. If she couldn’t handle the discipline then she didn’t have any business being in the Bureau to begin with.”

“I guess.” Ray said, somewhat appeased.

“Guys. Can I speak to Ray alone?” Susan asked from the doorway. When the pair left, Susan sat on Ray’s bed, looked down and began tearing up.

“Hey. What’s wrong?” he asked. 

Susan began crying. “I am so sorry.”

“For what?” he asked, confused.

“I should’ve trusted you. Instead, I saw that note saying you’ve run off with another woman and I just fell for it.”

“Of course you did.” Ray said, kindly. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because I should’ve known better. You’re a good man.”

“Who’s made a ton of mistakes, Talia’s right. With my history, it’s easy to assume the worst.”

“But still,” she continued, still upset, “If it wasn’t for Will trying to find you---you could’ve died and no one would’ve known.”

Ray grabbed Susan’s hand. “I love you. That’s what got me through this—knowing you were out there.”

“But I wasn’t! Don’t you get it? I was so angry at you. I had these terrible thoughts.” she said, getting increasingly upset.

“Susan. I don’t care. I love you.”

Quieter, she responded. “I didn’t trust you, Ray. Not the way I should’ve.” After looking down briefly, she added. “I don’t deserve you, Ray. You deserve someone better.”

Ray shrugged. “I’ve been saying that about you since we got together. I say we’re even.”

Susan chuckled at that. “I love you so much.” she said as she ran her fingers through his hair.

Ray grabbed her hand, kissed it saying “I love you too.”

Susan smiled, bent down and kissed him.

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this after watching Ep. 1.8 of Bones--"The Girl in the Fridge."
> 
> Ray being expelled from two private schools & his financial problems came from Inferno by FieryTribune.


End file.
